Jürgen Rödigs juristische Logik

This paper looks into the writings of Jurgen Rodig (1942–1975) on legal logic with the aim of identifying those results which still appear to be essential contributions to legal theory. Of particular relevance are (i) the reasons why propositional and predicate logic in its classsical form should be considered adequate and by and large sufficient to represent formal legal reasoning. Other issues discussed in this paper are (ii) Rodig’s views concerning specifically legal variants of logical arguments, (iii) the axiomatic method in legal theory, (iv) ways of substantiating general norms as a central step in what constitutes the legal syllogism, (v) the correct method of interpreting written law, (vi) the question as to whether there are formal characteristics of general norms, and (vii) structural properties of legal definitions and of similar legislative drafting tools.